New method for rapid prototyping of optical networks

03 October, 2016

UNLOC Senior Research Fellow, Alex Alvarado has worked with colleagues in Nokia Bell Labs on a new method which will help the rapid design and prototyping of optical communication systems.

Dr Alvarado undertook this research with Dr Laurent Schmalen and Dr Rafael Rios Müller of Nokia Bell Labs to address the important problem of estimating the performance of optical communication systems in transmission experiments for rapid prototyping and design of such systems. Optical communication systems and networks are ubiquitously used in the backbone of the internet and all modern communication networks.

Designing reliable optical networks usually requires extensive experimental verification to guarantee the high reliability that these networks must deliver. Dr Alvarado said "In this work, we propose a simple method that allows us to reliably predict the performance of optical communication transmitters and receivers with only a simple set of experimental measurements, hence significantly shortening the development cycles."

Members of UNLOC from UCL work with Nokia Bell Labs on Coding for Optical communications In the Nonlinear regime (COIN), a research consortium funded by the European Commission. 

The paper (Performance Prediction of Nonbinary Forward Error Correction in Optical Transmission Experiments) was published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology in September 2016. This paper was based on work originally presented at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference in March 2016.